Population & Community Ecology (Botany/Microbiology/Zoology 671) Course Syllabus - Fall 2007 Meeting Place and Time: Instructors: Description:

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1 Population & Community Ecology (Botany/Microbiology/Zoology 671) Course Syllabus - Fall 2007 Meeting Place and Time: 106 PSN, MW 11:00-11:50 am and F 11:00-12:50 pm Instructors: Thomas O. Crist (ZOO) 172 PSN; ; CristTO@muohio.edu (M 1-3 or by appt) David L. Gorchov (BOT) 336 PSN; ; GorchoDL@muohio.edu (by appointment) Hank Stevens (BOT) 338 PSN; ; HStevens@muohio.edu (W 12-1 or by appt) Description: Principles and applications of population and community ecology: including population dynamics, species interactions, community structure and diversity, and succession Credits: 4 graduate credits Prerequisites: a course in ecology; a course in calculus is recommended. Required Texts: Gotelli, N.J A Primer of Ecology, 3 rd Edition. Sinauer Associates. Morin, P.J Community Ecology. Blackwell Science. Course Structure and Grading: There will be two 50-minute and one 100-minute class meetings each week. Approximately 75% of the meetings will be devoted to lecture and discussion of ecological concepts, and to computer modeling exercises designed to enhance understanding of ecological models and general principles. The other 25% will involve class discussion of journal articles led by instructors or small groups of students. Readings include two textbooks on population and community theory, and journal articles from both the classical and contemporary literature in the field. Journal articles will be typically be available from the MU Library website, Those articles that cannot be accessed online will be posted on the course Blackboard site. Modeling exercises will utilize R, an open source language. If you wish to download R for use on your own computer, see instructions on the Blackboard site. Grades will be based on two exams during the semester, one final exam, a group assignment, and participation. For the group assignment, 2 students will write a short paper and lead a class discussion on a topic assigned by the instructors. The instructors have assigned 1 or 2 journal articles for the entire class to read, and the group is responsible for reading additional related articles. Start preparing early (weeks in advance) and consult with the instructor who assigned the paper. Provide the class with a brief conceptual background for the paper (10-15 min), then spend most of the time on discussion. Try to keep the discussion focused on the core concepts of the paper, while bringing in relevant points from related papers. Distribute a 1-page outline that summarizes the major points, provides additional citations, and lists discussion questions. The 2 discussion leaders will also turn in a brief (approx. 3-5 page, word) synthesis paper (max. 1 page summarizing the articles), due on the date of the discussion. Note that a summary or conclusion is not a synthesis; an effective synthesis will provide linkages among papers, especially as they pertain to key concepts. Other students are to to the 3 instructors 1-2 written questions related to the reading by 5 pm the day before the discussion, and are encouraged to ask these questions when relevant in discussion. 1

2 The course grade will be determined according to the following criteria: 2 Mid-term Exams 50% (25% each) Final Exam 25% Group Assignment 25% Grades may be raised up to half a grade (e.g. B+ to A-) based on superior participation in class discussions. The grading scale will be as follows: % A, 80-89% B, 70-79% C, 60-69% D, <60% F. Grades with + or - will be used at the upper and lower extremes of each range. As per the new Miami U. policy, if a student drops this course by Sept. 10, the course will be removed from the record, between Sept. 11 and Oct. 23 a "W" will be recorded, and after Oct. 23 the course cannot be dropped. Plagiarism and other academic misconduct will not be tolerated. If you have any questions about these issues or how they will be handled, consult any of the instructors or Part 1.V of the Student Handbook, Schedule of Lecture/Discussion Topics and Readings (C=Crist, G=Gorchov, S=Stevens) Week 1 (Aug. 20, 22, 24) INTRODUCTION AND CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND; POPULATION GROWTH (C,G,S) Hierarchy and scale; Models, Dynamics; Exponential growth Schneider, D.C The rise of the concept of scale in ecology. BioScience 51: Morin, P.J pp Roughgarden, J A Primer of Ecological Theory. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pp. ix xii (on Blackboard) Gotelli, pp. xx-xxi, 1-14 (Do problems ) Week 2 (Aug. 27, 29, 31) POPULATION GROWTH AND REGULATION (C) Logistic models; Density-dependence vs density-independence; cycles, fluctuations, and chaos; harvesting Gotelli, pp (Do problems 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.6) Turchin, P Population regulation: old arguments and a new synthesis. Pages in N. Cappucino and P. W. Price, editors. Population dynamics: new approaches and synthesis. Academic Press, San Diego. Roughgarden, J. and F. Smith Why fisheries collapse and what to do about it. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 93: : Sibly, R.M., D. Barker, M.C. Denham, J. Hone, M. Pagel On the regulation of populations of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. Science 309: Modeling Exercise - Exponential and logistic growth models 2

3 Week 3 (Sep. 5, 7) POPULATION GROWTH (G) Population viability analysis; Demographic and environmental stochasticity; Age-structured population growth Gotelli, pp , (Do problems 3.1, 3.2a, 3.3) Shaffer, M.L Minimum population sizes for species conservation. BioScience 31: No Discussion Modeling Exercise - Maximum sustained yield and harvest models Week 4 (Sep. 10, 12, 14) SPATIAL STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF POPULATIONS (C) Source-sink dynamics; Metapopulations; Spatially-explicit approaches Gotelli, Chapter 4, Do problems Pulliam, H.R Sources, sinks, and population regulation. American Naturalist 132: Bascompte, J. and R.V. Solé Habitat fragmentation and extinction thresholds in spatially explicit models. Journal of Animal Ecology Donovan, T.M., F.R. Thompson, III, J. Faaborg and J.R. Probst Reproductive success of migratory birds in habitat sources and sinks. Conservation Biology 9: Modeling Exercise - Metapopulation models Week 5 (Sep. 17, 19, 21) STAGE-STRUCTURED POPULATION GROWTH (G) Eigenanalysis; Stage-structured models Gotelli pp Crowder, L.B., D.T. Crouse, S.S. Heppell, and T.H. Martin Predicting the impact of turtle excluder devices on loggerhead sea turtle populations. Ecological Applications 4: Satterthwaite, W.H., K.D. Holl, G.F. Hayes, A.L. Barber Seed banks in plant conservation: Case study of Santa Cruz tarplant restoration. Biological Conservation 135: Modeling Exercise - Stage-structured matrix models 3

4 Week 6 (Sep. 24, 26, 28) COMPETITION THEORY (G) EXAM 1, Friday, Sep. 28 Lotka-Volterra competition; Resource competition models; Tradeoffs in competitive and dispersal ability Gotelli, Chap. 5; Morin, pp Miller, T.E., J.H. Burns, P. Munguia, E.L. Walters, J.M. Kneitel, R.M. Richards, N. Mouquet, and H.L. Buckley A critical review of twenty years use of the resource-ratio theory. Amer. Nat. 165: No Discussion (EXAM 1) Week 7 (Oct. 1, 3, 5) COMPETITION EXPERIMENTS (C) Niche concepts; Laboratory and field studies of competition Morin, pp and Seabloom, E.W., W.S. Harpole, O.J. Reichman, and D. Tilman Invasion, competitive dominance, and resource use by exotic and native California grassland species. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 100: Modeling Exercise - Lotka-Volterra competition Week 8 (Oct. 8, 10, 12) PREDATION (C) Numerical and functional responses of predators; Predator-prey models; Predator-prey cycles Morin, pp Messier, F Ungulate population models with predation: a case study with the North American moose. Ecology 75: Caudill, C.C Trout predators and demographic sources and sinks in a mayfly metapopulation. Ecology 86: s Krebs, C.J., S. Boutin, R. Boonstra, A.R.E. Sinclair, J.N.M. Smith, M.R.T. Dale, K. Martin and R. Turkington Impact of food and predation on the snowshoe hare cycle. Science 269: Korpimaki, E., P.R. Brown, J. Jacob, and R.P. Pech The puzzles of population cycles and outbreaks of small mammals solved? BioScience 54: Modeling Exercise - Predator-prey models Week 9 (Oct. 15, 17) PARASITISM AND PATHOGENS (C) 4

5 Host-parasite population dynamics; Pathogens and disease ecology Lecture Reading Morin, pp Schauber, E.M., R.S. Ostfeld, and A.S. Evans, Jr What is the best predictor of annual Lyme disease incidence: weather, mice, or acorns? Ecological Applications 15: No Discussion - Midterm Holiday Week 10 (Oct. 22, 24, 26) MUTUALISM (G) Mycorrhizae; Plant-pollinator interactions; Seed dispersal; Coevolution and specialization Lecture Reading Morin, pp and Bever, J.D Soil community feedback and the coexistence of competitors: conceptual frameworks and empirical tests. New Phytologist 157: Poulsen, J.R., C.J. Clark, E.F. Connor, and T.B. Smith Differential resource use by primates and hornbills: implications for seed dispersal. Ecology 83: Week 11 (Oct. 29, 31, Nov. 2) FOOD WEBS (S) - EXAM 2, Friday, Nov. 2 CHARACTERISTICS OF FOOD CHAINS AND FOOD WEBS Morin, pp Modeling Exercise (Wednesday, Nov. 2) Food-web stability (based on Pimm and Lawton 1977, in Morin ). No discussion (EXAM 2) Week 12 (Nov. 5, 7, 9) FOOD WEBS CONTINUED: INDIRECT INTERACTIONS (S) Morin, pp Wootton, J. T., M. Parker, and M. Power Effects of disturbance on river food webs. Science 273: Knight et al Trophic cascades across ecosystems. Nature 437: Modeling Exercise How disturbance can influence food webs (Wootton et al. 1996). 5

6 Weeks 13 (Nov. 12, 14, 16) FACTORS INFLUENCING FOOD WEBS: SEASONAL DYNAMICS; PRIORITY EFFECTS; ASSEMBLY RULES. (S) Morin, pp Chase, J.M Experimental evidence for alternative stable equilibria in a benthic pond food web. Ecology Letters, 6 : Price, J. E. and P. J. Morin Colonization history determines alternative stable states in a food web of intraguild predators. Ecology 85: Modeling Exercise Intraguild predation and Alternate Stable States. Weeks 14 & 15 (Nov. 19, 26, 28, 30; Wed. Nov. 21 starts Thanksgiving holiday) SPATIAL DYNAMICS; RECRUITMENT LIMITATION; ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY (S) Morin, pp , Gotelli, Chapter 7. Tilman et al Habitat destruction and the extinction debt. Nature 371: Lindborg, R. and O. Eriksson Historical landscape connectivity affects present plant species diversity. Ecology 85: Gonzalez, A. & Chaneton, E.J Heterotroph species extinction, abundance and biomass dynamics in an experimentally fragmented microecosystem. Journal of Animal Ecology, 71: Modeling Exercise Extending metapopulations to communities - a look at secondary succession. Week 16 (Dec. 3, 5, 7) CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF SPECIES DIVERSITY (S) Morin, pp Tilman, D Population versus ecosystem stability. Ecology 77: s: Harms, K. E., S. J. Wright, O. Calderon, A. Hernandez, and E. A. Herre Pervasive density-dependent recruitment enhances seedling diversity in a tropical forest. Nature 404: Lambers, J. H. R., J. S. Clark, and B. Beckage Density-dependent mortality and the latitudinal gradient in species diversity. Nature 417: Modeling Exercise Ecological Drift. FINAL EXAM - Monday, December 10, 9:45 am 6